81
Biological sex is neither binary nor a spectrum – a biologist explains how it’s multidimensional (theconversation.com)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/science@mander.xyz
26 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 5 points 1 day ago (1 child)

reaching by calling it 'multidimensional' when the entire article is two dimensional classifications. that's how. the headline is shit.

two dimensional

biological traits

mosaic

How are these two-dimensional?

placement of your gonads or breasts has nothing to do with how male or female you are. what are you talking about?

For example, someone who has a Y chromosome but complete androgen insensitivity – meaning their cells do not respond to androgens at all – develops testes hidden in their abdomen as well as typically female genitals.

Did you even read this far?

It seems like you didn't actually read the article or just chose to ignore everything that talked about multi-dimensionality.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago* (3 children)

    those are all two dimensional spectra dude. one end male, one end female.

    just because you like divided up different traits on that scale, doesn't make it 'multi dimensional'.

    if it was multi dimensional there would have to be a two or more axis of classification. no idea what that would be in terms of sexual classification though, but i suppose you could have tri or higher chromatic classifications.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    It sounds like you're arguing that since all these traits are used to determine between a single binary classification (or spectrum) in different ways that there's no multi-dimensionality but perhaps you're misunderstanding.

    If biological sex is something that can be accurately represented in a certain multidimensional space then every axis will necessarily have the same type of value (a range from female to male) but a different orientation (or trait being evaluated). This is the same as how you place a mathematical point in space by using 3 axes with the same type of value (-inf to +inf) but different orientations. You need all 3 axes to place the point and can't collapse its location down to a single axis. Similarly we should understand biological sex as something that can be measured by specific traits but never collapsed down to a single value and thus is intrinsically and inescapably multidimensional.

    Female to male is one dimension of measurement, yes, but that's only meaningful for individual traits. An individual has many traits and so must be described in multidimensional terms even for a single metric.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

    the traits are each one thing, they aren't multi dimensional.

    again, this whole thing is bizarre and forced. traits are on a 2d spectrum of male or female.

    having multiple traits doesn't make sex identification multidimensional.

    biological sex is male, or female. if anything this whole paper is reinforcing that idea. it feels like this whole thesis is a form of wishful thinking at best.

    this is literally trying to square the circle, trying to create a transcendental approach because they don't like the existing tools. But last time I checked the scientific method doesn't do transcendental research... it's philosophy of biology at this point.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (1 child)

    Multidimensional graphs are composed of multiple 2-dimensional axes....

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 22 hours ago* (1 child)

    there are no multidimensional graphs here. that's my entire point. they are all 2d graphs with one axis.

    the 'argument' seems to think taking traits measured on a graph, and mashing them together is like.. multidimensional sex or something, it's convoluted, and it's premises underline it's conclusion.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 22 hours ago (1 child)

    Isn't that the point though? Sex and gender are a collection of traits that in the majority of cases seem binary, but when you dig into the individual factors that comprise them, you find a more complex and sometimes unintuitive set of results. None of the actual graphs are multidimensional, but we call the overall result multidimensional.

    It's the whole reason the political discourse exists. There is no way to summarize every metric into a binary without excluding some people. The right-wing treats this as a gatcha whereas the left points to how the science is much more robust than some consider. This article is a further demonstration of that.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago* (1 child)

    What point? What are you describing that is useful to other people?

    Like I can write you a poem about the depths of my soul and my uniqueness... but that doesn't mean I am in anyway unique in terms of my biology.

    What I'm saying is this is a weird conflationary argument. You can't take a classificatory schema like sex and use it to be like 'oh were all distinct and wonderful' because that's... not the point of the classification schema... it's to identify you as one thing or another. Sex is a binary classification schema, and well the author is using it as such and then trying to claim that it's not?

    the authors argument is just kind of trivial... oh we are all unique mixes of gender traits... yeah so what? that doesn't mean we aren't male or female with marginal cases where one is clearly neither. the vast majority of us are one or the other.

    but if you are promoting a social agenda here, which is what I suspect, than the triviality of this argument is 'profound' because it means 'everyone is intersex'... which is precisely what someone agreed with, which is not doing biology... it's doing philosophy.

    but we live in a really weird time where people like... feel the need to make these things to 'elevate' us culturally or something. I remember all the radfem stuff in the 2000s that was like 'we need to re-identify female without the womb' or something... but it had nothing to do with science though often they'd try to make 'scientific' arguments to redefine female in a non-reproductive way, but that was not biology as a science, it was philosophy trying to redefine biological terms to push a social agenda as a 'deeper truth' or something.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago (1 child)

    All I'm saying here is that I appreciate additional studies about this but it's a shame that this one doesn't seem to have much merit.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •